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Today’s topics include how Google Play Protect bolsters Android app security; AT&T launches its nationwide LTE-M Network for the industrial internet of things, Microsoft opens its first cloud data centers in South Africa; and Sencha releases ExtReact JavaScript library to assist react developers in UI work.
Android’s status as the world’s most widely deployed mobile operating system has been somewhat clouded in recent years by the fact that it is also one of the most vulnerable to security threats.
In its latest effort to address the issue, Google last week announced Play Protect, an always-on service for scanning Android applications running on a user’s device and alerting them about potentially harmful behavior.
The technology, which is basically an antivirus tool, scans all Android applications downloaded from Google’s official Play store as well as those downloaded from third-party sites.
We’re seeing a growing list of internet of things platforms come into play for industrial or for general consumer use. GE has its industrial-IoT Predix, Microsoft has Windows IoT Core, and C3 IoT has a platform that is already at work in about 25 major global corporations.
Now AT&T has joined the group, announcing the deployment of its nationwide LTE-M network. Short for Long Term Evolution-M, the network is designed to enable a new generation of IoT devices, applications and services.
The LTE-M network is now live across the U.S. on AT&T’s 4G LTE network. The deployment represents another step forward on telecommunication giant’s roadmap to 5G wireless and massive IoT connectivity
Microsoft sees opportunity in Africa’s IT industry and startup scene and to serve that emerging market the software titan announced the opening of its first cloud data centers on the African continent.
“Few places in the world are as dynamic and diverse as Africa today,” wrote Scott Guthrie, executive vice president of the Cloud and Enterprise division at Microsoft, in a May 18 blog post.
Johannesburg and Cape Town have been selected as the sites of these data centers, which will begin delivering cloud services to the region in 2018. The data centers will deliver Microsoft Azure, Office 365 and Dynamics 365 application services.
Sencha, which makes a unified software package for building cross-platform commercial web applications, has released ExtReact, a software service designed to enable React developers to efficiently add user interface components to their applications.
React, sometimes called React.js or ReactJS, is an open-source JavaScript library for building user interfaces. It is maintained by Facebook, Instagram and a community of individual developers and corporations.
Until ExtReact was released May 16, React developers had been forced to build their own UI components from scratch—a time-consuming process that comes with significant integration and long-term maintenance risks, Sencha officials said.